Prison Pipeline

MISSION STATEMENT

Prison Pipeline is a radio program dedicated to educating the public about the Oregon criminal justice system. Our goal is to present a unique understanding of the criminal justice system, address the root causes of crime, and challenge the status quo. We seek to promote awareness and activism in order to foster a safe, healthy, and just society.
Tune in every Monday evening at 6:30 to hear our hosts Karen James, Adam Carpinelli, Amy Johnson, Sarah Vitak and Ruth Kovacs explore the Oregon justice system with a variety of guests. Hosts rotate weekly. Prison Pipeline's engineers are Danielle Parks and Michael Ftaclas.

Host Amy Johnson will interview Rev. Dr. Emily Brault, chaplain at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon's only women's correctional facility. As Chaplain, she has an intimate understanding of the lives of the women at Coffee Creek and of our broken criminal justice system. She is an advocate for sentencing reform, restorative justice and creating a culture of support, integrity and care in our society so that our injured and hurting people are no longer forced into prisons. We will ask listener's questions that are posted on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/prisonpipeline or emailed to kbooppc@gmail.com.

Hosts Amy Johnson and Karen James present audio from radio journalism students at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility. The youth discuss clemency, the school-to-prison-pipeline and perform spoken word. The MacLaren Radio Journalism class is a partnership between Morpheus Youth Project, Hope Partnership, and KBOO 90.7 fm community radio. KBOO producer Carlos Chavez has been the instructor for the weekly MacLaren Radio Journalism class for 5 years. Carlos trains the youth to become KBOO-certified radio journalists. Kathleen Fullerton, M.S.

Ruth Kovacs interviews ex-con Justin Woodruff, a house mentor for the Phoenix Rising Transitions home. In addition to supervising other ex-cons as they transition from prison to the community, Justin is enrolled in college and working toward a degree in social services. http://www.phoenix-rising-transitions.org/

Beading the Odds is a group at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn where young men exercise their creative skills by beading. Volunteer Juanita Garnow Olson, who has worked with the group for the past two years, says that while she knows no single activity can turn around a troubled young person's life, many of the youth make jewelry gifts to give to family and friends, fulfilling a need to give back. The youth also have opportunities to sell their beaded products and use the money for education, restitution to their victims, or for child support. With the support of the Portland Bead Society, their work will be for sale at the Gathering of the Guilds at the Portland Convention Center on April 24, 25, and 26th. Kathleen Fullerton, M.S.

Sarah Vitak interviews Romeo Sosa, the executive director of Voz, a workers' rights education project based in Portland, and Jonathan Irwin, former volunteer with No Mas Muertes (No More Deaths) in Tucson, Arizona. We’ll discuss incarceration and deportation of undocumented immigrants and the collaborations between Immigration Custom Enforcement (ICE) and the Portland Police Bureau. http://portlandvoz.org/http://forms.nomoredeaths.org/en/

Adam Carpinelli will interview Delphine Criscenzo and Jackie Malstrom from KBOO Community radio. Malstrom; the host and producer of Rose City Native Radio and Criscenzo have been visiting the Oregon State Penitentiary's Lakota Oyate Ki Club. The Lakota club is a Native American culture club located within the walls of the Oregon State Penitentiary. The Lakota Club is organized by Native inmates to provide quality programs and support to address the unique social, cultural, and economic needs of Native inmates. The organizers preserve, restore and sustain their Indian heritage and connection with the broader Native community. Rose City Native Radio will be celebrating its first anniversary.

On February 9th at Portland State University Maya Schenwar read from and discussed her book, Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better. Maya's book looks at how prison breaks community ties and enacts violence which continues after release, making communities less safe and in particular, decimating communities of color. Maya's book envisions a future beyond incarceration where our responses to harm are community based and foster connection and reconciliation rather than isolation. She profiles community based initiatives that are beginning to make this vision a reality. This initial reading and discussion by Maya aired on February, 23rd (http://kboo.fm/lockeddownlocke).

On February 7, 2015, the 12th annual Women in Prison Conference was held at Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland. Karen James interviews keynote speaker, Emily Salisbury, Ph.D.; Barbara Aldave, founder & president of The Portia Project; Kasia Rutledge, Attorney, Metropolitan Public Defenders; and Susie Leavell, Program Administrator, Washington State Department of Corrections. The event was presented by The Portia Project and Oregon Justice Resource Center. http://ojrc.info/ http://www.theportiaproject.org/

Audio

Ruth Kovacs presented another report from CR10 - the gathering of more than 3000 folks who support strategy to abolish the Prison Industrial Complex. She attended a workshop concerning alternatives to detention/incarceration. We also heard an update on Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Ruth shares a take of an interview she had with Lugman Abdullah at CR10. Abdullah is the National STOPMAX Campaign Coordinator. He shares his story about being locked up and then exonerated aver serving nine years on death row. Ruth also talks about the documentary, After Innocence.

Prison Pipeline presented an interview between host, Ruth Kovacs and telephone guest, Hans Bennett--a Philadelphia-based independent journalist and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia. They reviewed updated information on pending appeals for Mumia Abu-Jamall and current recent stories about his case.

Ruth reminds Prison Pipeline listeners of the importance of voting. Mumia spoke about the November election and his thoughts on the candidates, then we heard from Goldie, an Obama supporter who has been registering folks now--to beat the October 14 deadline for registration, and finally Molly called to remind folks that 18 year olds, ex-felons, and homeless folks are all eligble to vote. We also featured original music by David Strechert about prison life.

Jenka Soderberg - KBOO's News and Public Affairs director joins Ruth to share some poetry that was written by an incarcerated friend. Ruth and Jenka are also visited on the phone with Rashad Shabazg to discuss the Tenth annual Critical Resistance event to be held in CA later this month.

Ruth Kovacs will have as her guest Shaun Carnahan--a Supporter of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Carnahan has been in touch with Pam Africa and ICFFMAJ in Philadelphia and will be able to give us an update on the status of Mumia's plight. The news is not good. We'll want to hear what we can do to support the upcoming campaign to Free Mumia. We need to put a lot of energy into outreach.

Ruth interviews David Rogers, who is the president of Partnerships for Safety and Justice. They discuss Kevin Mannix's ballot measure that would require mandatory minimum sentences for multitude of crimes, many of which are non violent.

Comments

Hi, I am starting to reach the end of my rope of resources, and I thought I'd try you guys and see if you have some advice or helpful programs for this sort of matter.

I have a close friend who has been on the run for a while (over 2 years). He was arrested and charged with 2 felonies, Burglary and something else similar, for going onto his own property that was supposed to be abandoned. The people who were living there didn't pay rent for over 1 year, were impossible to reach by telephone, notified the landlord twice in person that they were moving. The landlord was getting letters from the city for code violations, and abondonment, he's fairly certain one of both of their main utilities (water or electric) were shut off, mail piled up, mostly empty house, etc. He was on the property one day, removed a couple items, mostly just assessing the amount of work to be done, came back the next day, had been there for a while when the cops showed up. They asked if he had been inside the premises, he said yes, that he felt he was within his rights as landlord, cops said you thought wrong. Everyone, including public defense acted as though this was an open and shut case of guilt, so no research was done to find out if anyone was even living there to be burgled in the first place!!

We don't know what to do now. I thought I would be able to hire a lawyer eventually who could prove this whole thing to be ridiculous, but now I am finding out any lawyer would be minimum $5000, most likely much, much more! I don't understand a system that can charge someone with a bogus crime, and leave them to the wolves. It seems wrong to tell someone that if they don't have $10,000 for their own defense, then they may as well take the charge, do the time, and try to move on with their life. Is there any such thing as a lawyer who cares, and will take a case based more on values than money?

Do you guys have any programs that offer discounted criminal defense lawyers, or know how I can maybe represent him myself if I can get all the facts right, or get copies of police reports, etc.? Any advice at all would be helpful...

Do you want to know more about the topics we’ve been discussing on Prison Pipeline?

CR10 was presented with more than 3,000 folks participating in 200 workshops. Each organization is working hard to focus on their mission.
Listed below are some organizations and contact information that we have mentioned on Prison Pipeline and a few more that are additional sources of information.

National STOPMAX Campaign Taking the Next Steps. Concerning the use of isolation and devices of torture in U.S. prisons. Search Google for:
American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) National STOPMAX Campaign. - Human Rights Coalition - Lugman Abdullah with Youth Service, Inc. - Back to Society, Inc, HRC.

Ban the Box in your Community -All of Us or None (A great 23 minute DVD -Locked Up..Locked Out - that is available for a small donation. Telephone 1-415-255-7036 - X337 to order. Linda Evans from San Francisco and Susan Burton from Los Angeles and Portland’s own Patty Katz from Partnership for Safety and Justice (start with Google) are all working on this issue. You can email: info@prisonerswithchildren.org for a lot of excellent information. Legal Services for Prisoners with Children show a page on the web “10 Things You Can Do - To Support the Struggle for Prisoners’ Rights”

FILMS TO SEE:
The CRITICAL RESISTANCE 10th Anniversary Film Festival
Showed the following films. I’m not sure about the availability of these films, but perhaps if you Google the name of the films that interest you, there will be enough information to help you see these films.